S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Chaser Preview Images
 

Straight from the Tamashii Nations blog!

http://www.tokunation.com/attachment...1&d=1442862165

UNF. Can't wait.

Also, very clever way of doing the light up effect for the Shingo Ax. Glad they went with that.

Looks like Type Formula has stickers:

http://blog.livedoor.jp/shfiguarts/a...037340023.html

I don't care for the suit, but for a premium release you'd think they could at least sticker the damn thing...

We've known for quite some time that Formula featured stickers actually.

For some reason, the Chaser suit just pops more here as a figuart. Can't wait to have this guy and complete the Rider Trio.

Agreed.

I honestly thought that the Shingou Axe was gonna include lights for the axe, much like Hot-Toys and their menagerie of Iron-Men figures.

I'd love to get Chaser but I can't stress this enough - Why in the hell is he an exclusive? Chase is practically one of the main characters and he's way more popular than Gou & Shinnosuke combined. Hell, Chase was TRENDING on Twitter when he made the ultimate sacrifice. If that's not a sign that Chaser should have been a retail release, I don't know what is.

Because they plan these thing well ahead of the actual show. Hence why the hilariously useless, barely used Type Dead Heat is a retail release instead of the proper Mid-Season upgrade, Type Formula.

Lovely! Really like what they did with light-up effect.
Man.. Too bad it's an exclusive.

They probably thought Deadheat would be pretty popular and thought it would sell well at retail. Meanwhile both Type Wild and Drive Deadheat are still very easy to find at retail. Drive figuarts don't seem to be selling out at the same rate the Gaim figuarts where last year.

Looks great, but the color looks kind of dull.

Assuming that Figuarts are aimed at an adult-collector audience, then perhaps sales are going to track more closely to how much that audience is enjoying the show in question, at least for current-series stuff.

I've enjoyed Drive enough (and I think it's improved greatly of late, although I'm also not caught up), but my toku-watching friend has been... not remotely enthusiastic. Gaim's ratings were apparently relatively low, but I get the sense it was a critical success with grown-up Rider viewers. It would make sense for that to translate to sales of adult-collector toys.

(The only reason Figuarts-as-adult-collector things is a question my head is I don't have a clear sense of how expensive they are, relative to people's income, in Japan.)

Can Chaser's busou arms be on his rider form?

I can't wait for this and Mach Deadheat.

Gaim and Drive have had the same number of standard retail releases though, so that's not exactly indicative of them matching their figures to the enthusiasm of the fans. Gaim has had considerably more exclusive releases (13 to Drive's 8 thus far) but not only did it have way more characters to begin with, the toyline has been going for a year longer.

I mean, I'm not saying audience reaction doesn't have any effect on what figures Bandai releases, but it probably doesn't have that huge an effect on at least the ones for the series that is currently airing. You get the sense that they plan these out in advance too much for that anyway.

I hadn't intended to suggest that audience enthusiasm for the show impacts corresponding Figuarts releases, but rather sales. Thus, the Gaim Figuarts being relatively scarce, and (some of) the Drive Figuarts having sluggish sales.

Ah. That makes sense. I wouldn't be so sure though, I've read that the scarcity of Gaim products is more due to the fact that they were understocked, based on Wizard's underwhelming sales. On the other hand, since Gaim sold fairly well, Drive has been more readily available. So it's not necessarily about the series' popularity, other factors are at play. Gaim figures may also be more scarce since almost two thirds of them are web exclusives, which naturally means they are made in more limited qualities.

Looks like he jumped out of the show. A must buy for me.

I guess Bandai's logic when it came to Chase was that they figured Rider Chaser was just an upgrade form for Chase (which it technically is) and wouldn't sell as well, but didn't realize that the suit would be featured as prominently in the show as it was. Essentially, another Zangetsu Shin situation.

Although this release is all the more baffling when you consider that Kivala got a retail release this month and she's just a one off form from a movie.

I know, right?!

I can't help but wonder whether Bandai will use the sales of Kivara/Kivala/Kiva-la as a basis for a decision on Kiva Base Form.

I write it down every time the whole "Why is Kivala a retail release when XYZ isn’t"-discussion comes up, but I’ll do it again.

First, what Talisman said: They plan releases from an ongoing show in advance. And they have to make a plan on which figures to sell in retail and which not. And even popular characters end up in the Web Exclusive-lineup, because they are not the main character or don’t seem to have the potential to be popular enough. That can go wrong, and it did with Gaim because they couldn’t respond to the popularity of characters that even changed their script in the show. Like Baron Lemon Energy who ended up as a con-exclusive and later lucky draw-item.

Another thing is: Web-Exclusives aren’t that hard to obtain in Japan, and that’s all Bandai cares about since Web-Exclusives aren’t meant to be sold outside of Japan in the first place. They’ll sell Chaser to the people who want him, get their profit and that’s it.

And regarding Kivala and her appearance in stores rather than the Web-Shop: I think the answer is pretty simple, it’s the design. It’s so girly and stupid that magical girl or anime fans in general who have no idea about Kamen Rider might like it enough to pick it up. Metal cleavage to the rescue.

The other thing people seem to be overlooking is that Chaser is coming out 4 months after his show has finished. The window for it being a mass release item has long passed.

That's true, but it more shifts the complaint to "why wasn't it released earlier?" than anything.

I mean, I personally find it a little weird that the retail releases for Drive were all released over a period of less than 4 months. Seems like an oddly small window to get out the really important stuff...especially since in this case the retail releases only covered stuff up to around episode 16 ish of the show. I know that Gaim released stuff until late last year, since I think Kiwami Arms came out around November? But maybe that's just Gaim being Gaim, I dunno how it usually works...

It does raise the question of what they'll do with Type Tridoron, though, since whenever he does come out, it's going to be even later than Chaser. Having the final form of a main Rider as an exclusive would be really weird. But it could happen, I guess.

Well to be fair Chaser did debut kinda late in the show. IIRC, the only riders/forms to debut in the show after him were Type Tridoron and Gold Drive, not including movie riders/forms.

Drive also appears to have less merchandise to sell overall than Gaim, so I imagine they're trying to space out their releases so that it can still be a profitable series alongside Ghost.